What would a Rubio electoral map have looked like?

[Coolface Sock #42069]

I'm torn.

On one hand, I think Rubio wouldn't have had nearly the volume of negative press Trump had, but I think that would have actually helped Hillary. No scandals to run against would have forced Hillary to come up with a positive message (here's why you should vote for me to instead of here's why you should vote against the other guy). Whenever elections become a referendum on one candidate rather than a contest between two candidates, the candidate in question tends to win. Hillary's strategy would have almost certainly shifted to running on policy and her own accomplishments. Rubio also likely would have struggled to run up the score among working-class whites like Trump did. I struggle to see how he flips all those voters in the Iron Range and rural Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. His voters would have looked much more like Mitt Romney's, and Romney lost. Rubio also would have been far more passive in the face of the inevitable slew of hate that he would have gotten from the left (they would have treated him largely the same as they treated Trump).

On the other hand, Hillary is a fundamentally-flawed politician with nowhere near the skills of President Obama. I'm not sure her campaign would have been much better against a more conventional Republican candidate like Rubio. Also, the rest of the Democratic Party would still be full of people busy calling Rubio and his supporters racist and sexist and every other name in the book just like they did to Mitt Romney and nearly every other Republican (everything that happened at the Golden Globes last night is a textbook course in Why Trump Won 101). The SJW celebrities would still be busy doing whatever they can to alienate poor whites and suburbanites. Bernie bros would still be doing their best to tear down Hillary before, during, and after the primary (to the disgust of Sanders himself). And Rubio certainly wouldn't have hemmhoraged votes in the suburbs the way Trump did; it's hard to see him losing Cobb County or Orange County or doing as poorly in Waukesha as Trump did, and I can only assume he would have done better in northern Virginia than Trump. But Trump won all those states except Virginia, and it's far from certain that Rubio would have won there.

If there is one piece of conventional wisdom that was stood on its head last year, it's that rich white voters in the suburbs decide elections. Rubio would have improved over Trump in many traditional Republican areas, but it wouldn't have been in the places you need to do well to win, and it's far from clear that he would have dominated rural and working class areas the way Trump did.

So many things about this election would have been the same no matter what, but I can't really see how Rubio would have won any state that Trump didn't win other than Virginia (which is only 13 electoral votes), and he could very possibly have lost Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan as well. So I can only conclude that the most likely scenario is that Rubio would have underperformed Trump in the electoral college, though he may have done better in the popular vote and may have still won.